Short-cut for Chatting and Texting

[jcannon]

While so many people are quick to defend short-hand texting through arguments like, "I don't use this professionally!" or "It's just to speed things up!", I have to disagree with those being justifiable responses. On most smartphones these days, you can program your shorthand to be written as full out words automatically. "If I write just "r", write "are" instead." Very simple!

The sad thing is, I'm starting to seeing words like "u" and "r" in professional communications. It's gross.

[mareebaybay]

I don't use short cuts when chatting. I may abbreviate some words, but I would never mix letters and numbers. That also irritates me as well.

[Firelily99]

I don't have a problem with words being abbreviated as long as I can get an idea of what they are trying to say.  After all, texting is supposed to be a quick message although I have friends that really run on and on.  The thing that I have trouble with is the use of punctuation marks as symbols - I have no idea what they mean! 

[Mrs17716]

I don't know about you, but I get annoyed when people use short-cuts when chatting and texting. I don't really say anything but I really gets me. They change what to wat, you to u, great to gr8, wait to w8, good morning to G-AM. Knw wat i myn? What do you think about this 21 century trend?

HATE IT! It's like my brain gets exhausted just reading those kinds of texts and trying to decipher them! Sad that this is what our world has come to!   

[MyDigitalpoint]

The idea of text is to save time.  I hate it when they use short cuts at all much less ones made up on the fly...I spend more time trying to figure out what a "quick" text means than it is worth.  It really is frustrating and one of my biggest pet peeves.

True! it's supposed that texting allow us to quickly say something, but when shortcuts are used, one may end up taking ages to decipher a message or not understanding at all.

This recalls me the times when pagers were popular, but the first pagers could only transmit digits, hence people had to invent numeric combinations to say something. In example, if someone would send you a message saying "100 304" could mean "wait for you (100) at mom's home (304)"

However the two parties (or more) involved in paging had a list of number and their meaning so they could decipher the message.

With actual texting there is not a "decoding list" and many time people invent the shortcuts on the fly making them even harder to know what they mean by that.

[scottman]

I think language evolves through different modes of communication. Language exists to serve a function, as long as it does that, who are we to judge?

[SpiralArchitect]

Frankly, I find these incredibly annoying. I guess a few are ok because they can save time but the neverending series of these short cuts has simply made reading texts from a lot of people impossible.

[Christina Curtin]

I know this might sound funny to you but it really did happen. When I was doing my high school exams (Leaving Certificate) a pupil in my class wore all this answers in short text. He had to redo all his exams. That just proves that doing something like short text writing will disimprove your grammar and writing skills. That pupil found it very hard to write properly.

[justusforus]

I was hoping we would all see the health benefits of slowing down, relaxing and not being attached to devices.  The world has gone the other way and if people are so busy they cannot even call (which is why this text thing supposedly is so hot) then they must be either as above lazy or so busy they can't complete a word.

Half the time I get texts, they are so hard to comprehend it takes several follow ups or a call.  So do they really save that much time?  As the saying goes, haste makes waste.

[HayleyPrimm]

No offense but old people just don't get it. Haha. As a teenager, saying "u" instead of you saves a lot of time texting. Changing "are" to "r" just happens naturally when I'm texting. It isn't about being "lazy" when texting. But if there was an easier and faster way to do something, wouldn't you want to do it that way?

[leahcim132]

I agree. Why can't people use the full word instead of short-cuts. It kind of annoys me too to be honest (even thought I do this all the time  :wacky:).

[Rosa]

I too find short-cut for chatting and texting annoying . I think chatting is even worse than texting.If someone is on the go and have to text in short-cut I can understand but to chat, that's too much.

[True2marie]

Alfonso,

Short-cuts for chatting and texting are a pain, especially when they don't make any sense.  Imagine this same scenario at work. 

In the past, I have worked in an environment that you have to document everything.  To save time, other employees too short-cuts and abbreviated most words.  Unfortunately, some of them were hard to make out.

[diprod]

I am guilty of shortening words when it comes to texting. I do it especially to save space. But if I am not really saving on space, I don't do it.

[mareebaybay]

I use short cuts all the time, even though I do not always do it on purpose. It is just a easy and convenient way to text people without the extra hassle.

[sophiaseo]

I do not get annoyed or irritated when someone uses abbreviations in text message or chat because I am a victim of it, too! I know that the phone keyboard and typing out full words get annoying, and sometimes , abbreviations are just needed to simplify a long rant. But, when someone uses so many shortcuts that I cannot understand what they are trying to say, it gets annoying. Also, I dislike when a company has a live-chat system and they do not use capital letters or correct punctuation. It makes them look very unprofessional.

[lizbeth19hph]

I also get pretty annoyed when someone I am chatting to or texting to  uses am awful lot of short cuts to the point of not merely understanding what they are supposed to be saying I think minimal use is fine but too much or overdoing it isn't that nice plus people get used to it that their spelling skills gets poorer.

[zackeymane]

Shorthand has been around far before the 21st century. And I use shorthand when I text. It doesn't matter too much. Chill out.

[Dlp92]

I agree, I find it infuriating! I understood when most people used phones with numerical keypads, but many people have smart phones with keyboards now and it just seems unnecessary. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

[Channa]

I don't know about you, but I get annoyed when people use short-cuts when chatting and texting. I don't really say anything but I really gets me. They change what to wat, you to u, great to gr8, wait to w8, good morning to G-AM. Knw wat i myn? What do you think about this 21 century trend?

I am annoyed by it at time, but whenever I get short-cut messages I try not to reply with short-cut. And I realize that even the younger people are doing it. I even heard where someone send an application letter using short-cut. A mean they are getting so use to this thing that they tend to forget not to use it in everything. OMG.

[LivetoErr]

I'm annoyed by short hand in text. Thankfully, no one I text uses text short cuts. I suppose I can understand when children do it, but adults should be able to text normally. We are after all, more mature. 

I just don't understand the value of short cuts. Is it really that hard to type "yo" in front of "u"? I don't see how it really saves that much time. It's not like it's complicated to type a few extra letters.

With teenagers, I think it's considered cool to talk in all the abbreviations. I suppose they think their non-tech-savvy parents have no idea what is being said. However, there are very few of the abbreviations my niece uses that I don't understand.

My boyfriend's mother texts short hand. Both my boyfriend and I cringe when we read her texts. Not only is it annoying, it's just weird reading a text from a 65 year old that says "Chk da mail plz".

[fredkawig]

Chatting and texting shortcut messages should only be used in emergency situations. Yes. It's really annoying to find some people who actually use this as their general form of communication which makes you believe that they are not really educated.

[diprod]

I actually dont encourage it for anyone to do. It's not good practice. It's still best if you say things in the correct spelling.

[wander_n_wonder]

Yep. How lazy can one get. Is it really going to take that match time to write you instead of u?

The worst offenders are xxxs using words like 'mah'. People, 'my' is actually a letter shorter than that travesty.

I agree with you!  Some of the shortcuts are not really shortcuts and it's really annoying whenever I see that.  I don't know if people are just trying hard to be cute by doing that.  But it's really not cute at all.  Sometimes, I cannot even understand a text completely because of these kinds of words.

[Channa]

I don't know about you, but I get annoyed when people use short-cuts when chatting and texting. I don't really say anything but I really gets me. They change what to wat, you to u, great to gr8, wait to w8, good morning to G-AM. Knw wat i myn? What do you think about this 21 century trend?

Oh my goodness.. I hate it so much, I always try to spell my word when sending a text and then the when the person reply its a short cut message sometimes I don't even understand what they say I have to read it over and over to get it. I really don't like it .